In an interview with Kevin Smith, Stan Lee said that, unbeknownst to its cast and crew, this movie was never intended to be released. It was made only because the studio that owned the rights to make a Fantastic Four movie would have lost those rights if production didn't start by a certain date. Producers Bernd Eichinger and Roger Corman have both denied this. Corman said he was under contract to release it, and Eichinger said the film was never released because Marvel Studios founder Avi Arad bought it and ordered all copies destroyed for fear of the low-budget project cheapening the brand. Arad confirmed this in 2002, adding that he had been unaware of an upcoming Fantastic Four film until a fan mentioned it to him after noticing Arad's Fantastic Four shirt. Arad has never seen the film.
Most of the film's budget was spent on The Thing's costume.
This film has never had a theatrical, VHS, DVD or broadcast release in any country due to the apparent destruction of the film negative and all film prints. However illegal poor copy bootleg DVD's are known to exist (copied from bootleg VHS tapes).
At first, Marvel denied that this film ever existed. When they were confronted with the footage in the film's trailer, they said it was a pilot for a TV show that was never commissioned. They reluctantly admitted its existence several years later, after the film found its way onto the internet via a bootleg VHS copy.
In the mid 1980s German film producers Constantin Film bought a ten year option the rights from Marvel Comics for an initial $250,000. Just before the ten year option ran out, and in order to meet the terms of the contract so they would have first refusal to renew them, Constantin hurriedly had put this film into production. Marvel were not impressed at the low budget results and in order to avoid damaging the brand they quietly bought the few film prints and negative from Constantin Film to avoid the possibility of it getting any kind of theatrical or video release. (but not before somebody in the industry had managed to make an illicit video copy). Both Roger Corman (who produced the film), the director Oley Sassone and the cast and crew of the film were not consulted or informed of this move, as there were indeed plans in place for a small theatrical release and a trailer had been made with this in mind. It is rumored that Marvel subsequently had all the film prints and the negative destroyed. The end result was that Constantin Film were able to keep another ten year option on the Fantastic Four film series. After Constantin secured funding from 20th Century Fox the big budget version I Fantastici 4 (2005) was made. After the box office success of the 2005 version, and several years before Marvel had formed their own film studios, Marvel then renewed Constantin Film's ten year option and this resulted in the sequel I Fantastici 4 e Silver Surfer (2007) and the reboot Fantastic 4 - I fantastici quattro (2015). However the critical and financial failure of the 2015 version made Fox get cold feet in the FF project and withdrew to concentrate on keeping hold of its more successful and profitable, 'The X-Men'. Several years later, the rights did finally revert back to Marvel.